Brian Naylor

In this role, he covers politics and federal agencies, including transportation and homeland security.

With more than 30 years of experience at NPR, Naylor has served as National Desk correspondent, White House correspondent, congressional correspondent, foreign correspondent and newscaster during All Things Considered. He has filled in as host on many NPR programs, including Morning Edition, Weekend Edition and Talk of the Nation.

During his NPR career, Naylor has covered many of the major world events, including political conventions, the Olympics, the White House, Congress and the mid-Atlantic region. Naylor reported from Tokyo in the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, from New Orleans following the BP oil spill, and from West Virginia after the deadly explosion at the Upper Big Branch coal mine.

While covering the U.S. Congress in the mid-1990s, Naylor's reporting contributed to NPR's 1996 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Journalism award for political reporting.

Before coming to NPR in 1982, Naylor worked at NPR Member Station WOSU in Columbus, Ohio, and at a commercial radio station in Maine.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions defended his boss's criticisms of NFL players for kneeling in protest during the national anthem Tuesday, saying President Trump has "free speech rights too."

Sessions defended Trump's controversial remarks as he criticized college speech policies during an address at the Georgetown University Law Center, saying "freedom of thought and speech on the American campus are under attack."

"In this great land," Sessions also said, "the government does not get to tell you what to think or what to say."

Former Sen. Pete Domenici, who championed balanced budgets, nuclear energy and parity for mental illnesses in health insurance during his six terms in office, died Wednesday morning in Albuquerque, N.M.

The New Mexico Republican was 85. His death was confirmed by his son Pete Domenici Jr.'s law office and announced on the Senate floor by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who also tweeted the news:

The disaster relief bill given final approval by Congress on Friday can't come too soon for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Without a new injection of funds, officials said FEMA's cash box would be empty as early as this weekend, right around the time that Hurricane Irma is scheduled to slam into southern Florida, while southeast Texas and Louisiana are still drying out from Hurricane Harvey.

President Trump is pledging to chip in to assist Hurricane Harvey recovery efforts, to the tune of $1 million of his personal funds.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders made the unexpected announcement during her briefing on Thursday. Responding to a question about whether the president planned to personally contribute, Sanders said Trump "would like to join in the efforts that a lot of the people that we've seen across this country do, and he's pledging $1 million of personal money to the fund."

President Trump, declaring "there has probably never been anything like this," praised the work done by federal officials and authorities in Texas and Louisiana to deal with the massive flooding caused by Harvey, the hurricane-turned-tropical storm.

"To the people of Texas and Louisiana, we are 100 percent with you," Trump said in his opening statement at a joint news conference with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto.

Hurricane Harvey is the first test of the Trump administration's response to a natural disaster. And much of that responsibility falls on the shoulder of the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, William "Brock" Long.

Long was confirmed as FEMA administrator by the Senate in June, just a few months ago, but he is not exactly a stranger to the agency. He was a regional manager there during the George W. Bush administration, and he went on to serve as Alabama's emergency management director.

President Trump says he is ready to declare the nation's opioid crisis "a national emergency," saying it is a "serious problem the likes of which we have never had." Speaking to reporters at the entrance to his Bedminster, N.J., golf club, where he is on a working vacation, Trump promised "to spend a lot of time, a lot of effort and a lot of money on the opioid crisis."

In August, those who can flee D.C.'s swamplike heat and humidity in search of a cool breeze. This summer, that number includes President Trump. He's spending the next 17 days at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J. — not a wilderness, for sure, but likely a degree or two cooler and less humid than the capital city, even if it's not far from the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge.

President Trump swore in his new chief of staff Monday morning, former Homeland Security Secretary and retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, telling reporters he has no doubt Kelly will do a "spectacular job" in his new role.

Kelly takes over from Reince Priebus, former chairman of the Republican National Committee, who left the position after a little over six months, unable to bring order to a chaotic and at times fractious West Wing.

The newly installed Trump White House communications director, Anthony Scaramucci, unloaded on the White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus, and adviser Steve Bannon with some harsh language that would make a sailor blush.

Louisiana Republican Congressman Steve Scalise is out of the hospital. Scalise was shot during a baseball practice with his colleagues last month. He was released from a Washington hospital yesterday, and he is now in a rehab center. NPR's Brian Naylor reports.

A senior FBI official said Wednesday the nation is "under relentless assault" from foreign adversaries, as the Senate Judiciary Committee continued its probe into Russia's interference with last year's presidential election.

Bill Priestap, assistant director of counterintelligence at the FBI, painted a bleak picture of efforts — both overt and covert — by foreign government agents inside the U.S. "Our economy, our national security and our way of life are being actively threatened by state actors and their proxies," he said.

The Senate voted Tuesday to begin debating a replacement for the Affordable Care Act. It remains uncertain as to what that replacement might look like. No formal legislation has been drafted. But senators moved to take the procedural first step, known as a "motion to proceed." The vote was 51-50, with Vice President Pence casting the tiebreaking vote.

Debate will now begin, most likely on a measure to fully repeal the law, also known as Obamacare.

The White House communications operation underwent a dramatic shake-up Friday. Sean Spicer resigned as press secretary after President Trump appointed Anthony Scaramucci, a wealthy New York financier, as his communications director. Appearing on camera before the White House press corps at a televised press briefing, Scaramucci then announced Sarah Sanders, Spicer's deputy, as the new press secretary.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions says he will stay at his post for "as long as that is appropriate." That follows comments by President Trump, who said he wouldn't have appointed Sessions had he known Sessions would recuse himself from the investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

When Donald Trump Jr. met with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya last June at Trump Tower to gather information on Hillary Clinton for his father's presidential campaign, it's now clear there was at least one more Russian in the room. He has been identified in published reports as a Russian-American lobbyist named Rinat Akhmetshin.

President Trump once again defended his son Donald Trump Jr.'s meeting with a Russian lawyer in the midst of last year's presidential campaign, saying that his eldest son is a "wonderful young man" and that the meeting was one "most people in politics would have taken."

Trump's remarks came during a news conference in Paris with French President Emmanuel Macron while Trump is visiting the longtime U.S. ally as part of France's Bastille Day celebration.

Christopher Wray, President Trump's nominee to lead the FBI, stressed his independence Wednesday, saying that his loyalty is to the Constitution and the rule of law and vowing he would "never allow the FBI's work to be driven by anything other than the facts, the law and the impartial pursuit of justice. Period."

The J. Edgar Hoover FBI building is crumbling. Literally. Workers have placed netting along parts of its facade to keep chipping concrete from falling on pedestrians below. There are concerns about its security and the building, which opened in 1975, is no longer big enough to house the Bureau's headquarters staff.